Graffiti – in our faces, again

At the gateway to the city on the urban motorway beside the Thorndon flyover, a huge billboard declared the cost to the Council for the huge vandalism problem we call graffiti.

Just a few hundred metres along the motorway, as if in defiance, a new long block wall was completely plastered by a prolific multi-coloured attack.

The vandalism was reported to WCC. ” Is it on council property? ” asked the call-centre operator. How should we know! Please just deal with it! Here was the first hint of a problem.

That report was made 24 days ago (that’s right, more than 3 weeks ago). The graffiti remains. It may have been elaborated since then as well; afterall graffiti begets graffiti.

Has WCC really got on top of graffiti?
Why has this response been so ineffective, particularly on such a blatant example of the problem? When anyone goes to the trouble to report a graffiti problem, surely there’s a ‘contract’. One party has volunteered time and effort to report, the other has the obligation to actually do something useful with that information. Hopefully within 24 hours; in line with the very advice WCC dishes out concerning responsiveness to graffiti.

Are ratepayers $’s are being squandered on billboards and other communication channels? Citizens who are encouraged to respond then expect a result for accepting the invitation to participate.

What’s broken? What is going on here?
Lets get our act together (yet again! — alluding to the TRA graffiti study of some years ago).